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New business wins for Hermes, the fund manager owned by the BT Pension Scheme, and the Dutch fund manager PGGM, start off the first of Financial News' new weekly roundups of the week in institutional investment mandates.

Fund management

Hermes said at the start of the week it had picked up a total of three new appointments for its corporate-governance advisory service, Eos. Under this arrangement Hermes offers to handle other big investors' share-voting responsibilities and even their negotiations with company management.

Two of the pension schemes sponsored by UK defence giant BAE Systems – with total assets of £11.7bn (€12.87bn) – have hired Hermes to advise on £5bn of their equity assets. David Brief, chief investment officer of the BAE funds, hailed Hermes for "bringing together a number of pension schemes to give us collectively a more influential voice with corporate managers".

Similarly, the Danish co-operative pensions provider Unipension has hired Hermes to advise on £5.5bn of its funds, and a US socially-responsible fund manager, Highland Good Steward, did the same for its $250m under management.

Meanwhile, the Dutch fund manager PGGM, whose primary responsibility is the €86bn pension fund for the country's healthcare workers, has also scooped a mandate to run a much-smaller scheme for the arts and culture industries.

The €315m Stichting Pensioenfonds Cultuur has hired PGGM as a so-called "fiduciary manager", meaning it will take over all the fund's investments and provide its board with related advisory services. Barbara Leach, chairman of the board, said PGGM's "continuity, sustainability and cost awareness" made it a good fit.

Investment consultancy

Related

Yesterday, the Dutch group Cardano announced it had been hired by the £5bn UK pension fund for power company E.on as its new investment consultant. According to "Pension Funds and their Advisers", an industry directory, the E.on scheme previously used Hewitt Associates.

Neil Smith, chief executive of the E.on UK Pension Scheme said, “We chose Cardano because we wanted to adopt a more dynamic and flexible approach to our investment strategy."

Custody and investor services

Meanwhile, fund administrators Close Fund Services said today they had picked up a contract to provide backoffice support for a new €140m real estate debt fund from M&G Investments. Close already administers about £1.1bn of offshore funds for M&G.

James Tracey, a director of Close Fund Services, said it was "pleasing" to further the two companies' strategic partnership.

Other mandates

The Personal Accounts Delivery Authority, which is the government agency charged with constructing and introducing the UK's new state pension scheme, the National Employee Savings Trust or Nest, has picked Tata Consulting Services as its scheme administrator.

TCS, which is an arm of the Indian conglomerate, was left as the sole remaining bidder after several others pulled out. The pension scheme, introduced from 2012, is set to become one of Europe's largest, and TCS' contract will run for 10 years.